Wicomico Recreation’s instructional volleyball programs open for registration

Programs start in early February

Salisbury, MD – Registration is open for two Wicomico Recreation instructional volleyball programs.

The Eastern Shore Elite Club Practice Squad is for girls ages 15U and 16-18. Players will meet Thursday evenings from 6-7:30 p.m. at the Glen T. Robinson Community Center, located at 28053 Rockawalkin Ridge Road in Salisbury.

Sessions for that program run from Feb. 2-March 9 and March 16-April 20. The cost is $115 per session or $200 for both.

There is also a youth volleyball instructional program set for Feb. 7-March 28 at the Glen T. Robinson Community Center. This program for boys and girls has three divisions, which all meet on Tuesday evenings. The cost per player is $60.

Division I, for seventh- and eighth-grade students and returning sixth-grade students, will be held from 7-7:45 p.m. Division II, for students in fourth through sixth grades, will be held from 6:15-7 p.m. Division III, for first through third grade students, will be held from 5:30-6:15 p.m.

These programs are directed by Coach Chris Emge. The Eastern Shore Elite Volleyball Academy is devoted to giving athletes the opportunity to maximize their volleyball potential, while at the same time, teaching and enforcing basic fundamental volleyball skills. ESEVA provides a solid foundation which enables young people to play volleyball into adulthood.

Registration is available at the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center Box Office (Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.–6 p.m.) and online at www.WicomicoRecandParks.org. More information about Eastern Shore Elite can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/esevolleyball/. Contact Allen Swiger at aswiger@wicomicocounty.org or 410-548-4900 x108.

Four Arrested in Attack, Robbery of 911 Dispatcher in Detroit

Detroit police say they have arrested four people in connection with the attack and robbery of a 911 dispatcher.

Marquise Goodman and Lathyas Sutton, both 17, were taken into custody along with two others, WXYZ reported.

The 60-year-old 911 operator was attacked by four young men on her way to work after she stepped off the bus she normally takes to get to work, WDIV reported.

Police say an armed suspect approached her from behind and demanded her belongings. Three other suspects approached her moments later demanding more items and grabbing her by the neck.

The suspects punched her and threw her to the ground before they fled.

“Oh, I keep seeing flashes of that little boy in my face. You know, tell me that, you know, give me whatever I got. I still have flashbacks of that right now. I’m about to cry again,” she told WXYZ.

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Perdue Associates Top All Fund-Raisers For Relay For Life Of Wicomico County For Sixth Straight Year

SALISBURY, MD. — Perdue Farms’ associates in Salisbury were the top fund-raising team for the 2016 American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Wicomico County. Associates contributed $35,642 toward the $170,000 that was raised during the campaign to support the American Cancer Society’s fight against cancer. The Perdue team includes associates from its Corporate Office and the Perdue AgriBusiness office in Salisbury.

“The Perdue Chicks team is a fund-raising powerhouse for our Relay For Life event,” said Kendall Guy, Wicomico County Relay event co-chairperson. “We are delighted that this team, with the backing of the Perdue workforce and our local community, continue to strive to attain our Top Adult Fundraising Team award year after year. The money raised by the Perdue Chicks makes a significant impact in the fight against cancer and the services that can be provided by the American Cancer Society. We look forward to joining forces again in 2017.”

The Relay For Life of Wicomico County was held here Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016 at Winterplace Park.

“At Perdue, we have a long history of supporting the fight against cancer through Relay For Life, not only in Wicomico County but throughout many of the communities where our associates live and work,” said Danielle Cordrey, a Perdue Relay For Life campaign coordinator.

Since 1997, Perdue associates have contributed more than $439,592 to support Relay For Life in Wicomico County.

Throughout the year, Perdue associates support Relay For Life by participating in a variety of fund-raising activities, including a designer handbag bingo, the Shorebird Metric Century Bike Ride, a golf tournament and luminary sales, as well as Relay For Life.

“We’re proud to be a partner with the American Cancer Society and help end the suffering of so many from cancer,” said Cordrey.

Perdue Farms’ associates lead all fund-raisers for the 2016 American Cancer Society Relay For Life of Wicomico County with $35,642 in contributions. From left to right are Relay For Life Event Co-chairperson Kendall Guy, Perdue associates Vanessa Kelley, Teresa Welch, Maryann Jones, Danielle Cordrey, Theresa Wright, Chairman Jim Perdue and Debbie White, Senior Community Manager, American Cancer Society.

Obama’s Blunder; Trump’s Gambit

President Obama has conducted the most deleterious foreign policy of any U.S. president since Woodrow Wilson. This is not due just to a dead ambassador on the streets of Benghazi, a phony red line in Syria which led to 400,000 dead, two million wounded, and two million refugees, losing Egypt to Islamic radicals, or empowering a terrorist regime in Iran. Those developments alone are enough to rank Obama among the worst foreign policy presidents. Obama’s most egregious error is far worse – his inability to grasp the balance-of-power dynamics among the U.S., Russia and China. Yet, Obama’s blunder is Trump’s opening to rescue U.S. foreign policy from grave weakness, and restore U.S. leadership to the world.

There are three primary powers in the world – the U.S., Russia, and China. All other nations are secondary allies, or tertiary powers. In a three-power system, the object of foreign policy for a primary power is to align with one of others to the detriment of the third. A great power that does not pursue this policy becomes the victim of an alliance between the remaining two. Such an alliance need not be permanent; it can shift, as was the case with Nixon’s opening to China, which put Russia on the defensive and led eventually to the downfall of the Soviet Union.

This dynamic is not difficult to grasp. Adults playing the board game Risk know that while the game begins with six players, it quickly evolves to three survivors. At that point, it is imperative for two of the players to align and destroy the third by systematically attacking it, and refraining from attacking each other. The victim is quickly wiped from the board.

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Governor Hogan Announces 2017 Student Debt and Tuition Relief Initiative, Investments in Higher Education

Student Loan Interest 100% Tax-Deductible for All Marylanders Making Less Than $200,000 - Tuition Growth Capped at State Colleges & Universities

ANNAPOLIS, MD - Governor Larry Hogan today announced the administration’s 2017 Student Debt and Tuition Relief Initiative, as well as targeted investments in higher education. Governor Hogan made the announcement at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he was joined by Maryland Secretary of Higher Education James Fielder and Maryland Secretary of Housing and Community Development Ken Holt; as well as University of System Maryland Chancellor Dr. Robert Caret; University of Maryland, College Park President Dr. Wallace Loh and the University's Board of Regents; University of Maryland University College President Dr. Javier Miyares; St. Mary’s College President Dr. Tuajuanda Jordan; Morgan State University President Dr. David Wilson; and Maryland Association of Community Colleges Executive Director Dr. Bernie Sadusky. 

The governor’s proposal includes legislation to make student debt interest payments tax-deductible for all Marylanders earning less than $200,000 per year, funding to cap tuition growth at Maryland colleges and universities at a maximum of two percent, and targeted investments in priority projects at Maryland’s higher education institutions.

“Having a college education is more important now than ever before, but the harsh reality many face today is that earning a college degree often goes hand-in-hand with accumulating crippling college debt,” said Governor Hogan. “We believe that our new Student Debt and Tuition Relief Initiatives will provide much-needed relief from student loan debt, and will help us continue to make college in Maryland more affordable.”

In 2015, the Hogan administration immediately began working to ease the burden of student debt, which in many cases has become a burden to homeownership, by creating a mortgage initiative to help Marylanders with $25,000 or more in student loan debt, resulting in $90 million in mortgages closed. In 2016, the administration launched the Maryland SmartBuy initiative, a first-in-the-nation program that allows eligible buyers to purchase move-in-ready homes while eliminating their student loan debt burden. The first SmartBuy purchase was made on September 30, 2016.

"I thank Governor Hogan for his administration's continued investment in higher education, and I applaud his efforts to ensure that even more Marylanders have access to the world-class education our universities have to offer," said Chancellor Caret.

Governor Hogan’s 2017 Student Debt and Tuition Relief Initiative and higher education investments include:

Student Debt Relief Act of 2017: Under this proposal, the vast majority of Marylanders will be able to deduct 100 percent of the interest paid on their student loan debt from their income tax return. Beginning in 2018, Marylanders making less than $200,000 and couples making less than a combined $250,000 per year will not pay any Maryland income tax on their student loan interest payments. This proposal is expected to save Marylanders, many of whom are currently struggling to pay off college debt, $20 million each year.

Tuition Relief Initiative: Governor Hogan also announced his plan to make Maryland’s public colleges and universities more affordable by providing major tuition relief for the second year in a row. Maryland universities requested to raise tuition by as much as five percent in 2017, but Governor Hogan announced that the state would partner with these institutions to invest an additional $17.5 million dollars to allow 14 Maryland colleges and universities to cap tuition growth at two percent including all 12 University System of Maryland institutions, as well as Morgan State University and St. Mary’s College.

Investing in Higher Education: The governor announced an investment of more than $380 million in the 2017 Capital Budget for higher education projects across the state, including:

• $89 million for construction of the new Biomedical Sciences Education facility at the University System of Maryland, Universities at Shady Grove Education Center;
• $40 million to continue construction of the Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County;
• $26 million to start construction for a new science facility at Towson University;
• $9 million to begin construction of Morgan State University’s Student Services building;
• $25 million for continued construction of the James Clark Bioengineering Building at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Additionally, Maryland’s community colleges will receive $56 million to fully fund all of their requested projects for the year, with an additional $8 million for projects at Goucher College, McDaniel College, and St. John’s College.

WCSO Press Releases - Jan. 10, 2017

Incident: Theft
Date of Incident: 5 January 2017
Location: 1500 block of Glen Avenue, Salisbury, MD
Suspect: John Kevin Beauchamp 2nd, 22, Salisbury, MD
Narrative: On 5 January 2017 at 11:30 PM, a deputy arrested John Beauchamp in connection with a theft case. It was alleged that Beauchamp was complicit with the theft of a .22 rifle from a residence in the 1500 block of Glen Avenue. During the subsequent investigation the deputy learned that the purloined firearm had been purchased by an individual in Salisbury who cooperated with law enforcement and turned over the rifle.
It was discovered that Beauchamp was the seller of the rifle and that he was involved in its theft.
Upon arrest the deputy transported Beauchamp to the Central Booking Unit where he was processed and taken in front of the District Court Commissioner. Following an initial appearance the Commissioner detained Beauchamp in the Detention Center in lieu of $2,500.00 bond.
Charges: Theft under $100.00 and Conspiracy to Commit Theft

Incident: Burglary / Theft
Date of Incident: 5 January 2017
Location: 1500 block of Glen Avenue, Salisbury, MD
Suspect: John Kevin Beauchamp 2nd, 22, Salisbury, MD
Narrative: On 5 January 2017 at 11:30 PM, a deputy arrested John Beauchamp in connection with a burglary and theft case. During this investigation the deputy learned that a shed had been entered at this address and items had been stolen. The stolen items included a leaf blower, a chainsaw and an air conditioning unit. The deputy also learned that the victim observed that a known subject, John Beauchamp, had the air conditioner at his residence and had begun the disassembly process.
During the ensuing investigation the deputy discovered that Beauchamp was listing a leaf blower on a local Face Book site where individuals list items for sale. The leaf blower was positively identified as the one stolen from the victim.
The investigating deputy completed an Application for a Statement of Charges against Beauchamp and the Commissioner issued a Criminal Summons for Beauchamp to appear in District Court.
Charges: Burglary 2nd Degree, Burglary 4th Degree, Theft $1,000.00 to $10,000.00

Incident: Fugitive from Delaware
Date of Incident: 6 January 2017
Location: 300 block of Civic Avenue. Salisbury, MD
Suspect: Jonathan Louis Bonneville, 32, Berlin, MD
Narrative: On 6 January 2017 at 10:45 AM a deputy located a wanted subject from the State of Delaware, Jonathan Bonneville, at a residence in the 300 block of Civic Avenue in Salisbury. Authorities in Delaware wanted Bonneville in connection with an Attempted Rape 2nd Degree case.
Upon arrest, the deputy transported Bonneville to the Central Booking Unit where he was charged with being a fugitive from the State of Delaware. Following an initial appearance, the Commissioner detained Bonneville in the Detention Center without bond pending extradition back to Delaware.
Charges: Fugitive from Delaware

SNAP Benefits by Household Size

SNAP Benefits by Household Size
Household Size	Maximum Monthly Benefit, Fiscal Year 2017	Average Monthly Benefit, Fiscal Year 20151
1	$194	$142
2	$357	$253
3	$511	$379
4	$649	$465
5	$771	$556
6	$925	$657
7	$1,022	$697
8	$1,169	$870
Each additional person	$146

Obama's Final Gift: Uranium Headed To Iran

Unsatisfied with stoking the fiery cauldrons of Islamic fundamentalism with his weak-kneed response during his eight-year tenure, Barack Obama has now enabled Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, to speed ever-closer toward successful attainment of nuclear weapons, approving a secret delivery of roughly 130 tons of uranium for the fundamentalist Iranian regime.

As AP reports, the move to send Iran the uranium from Russia is supposedly to curry favor with Iran so it will remain committed to the nuclear deal it negotiated with the West:

Once Iran possesses the uranium, it can enrich it to use as reactor fuel or the core of an atomic bomb. Iran already received roughly the same amount of uranium in 2015 as the carrot to induce it to agree to the nuclear deal; it sent enriched uranium in return to Russia. In the current deal, Russia has been compensated by roughly 40 metric tons (44 tons) of heavy water given by Iran; 30 more metric tons have gone to the U.S. and Oman.

Heavy water cools reactors that produce more plutonium than reactors cooled by light water. Plutonium can be turned into the fissile core of a nuclear weapon.

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Former Pugh Aide Indicted For Straw Contributions

A former aide to then-Sen. Catherine Pugh has been charged on allegations he sidestepped state campaign contribution limits.

"Election laws are in place to maintain the integrity of the electoral process and foster transparency in the regulation of campaign contributions," State Prosecutor Emmet C. Davitt said in a statement. "Illegal straw contributions in names other than one's own to evade such laws cannot be tolerated."

The charges allege that Gary Brown Jr., now a member of the Baltimore City Democratic Central Committee, deposited cash into the bank accounts of his mother, step-father and brother. Brown then immediately contributed the money in the names of the three relatives to the Pugh mayoral campaign. Between Jan. 13 and April 9 of 2016, Brown contributed a total of $18,000.

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The Grapes of Liberal Winter

The swift currents of liberal promises empty always into the great desert of their futility. Someday, historians will dig into the ruins of the Obama administration and they will find in that moldering heap a record of political actions far removed from America's founding principles of government. They will walk among disasters. They will gaze upon the rubble of old propaganda mills and theaters of intolerance from a time of willful ignorance and civil strife; and they will try to understand our madness. They will wonder that democracy could have survived the vast entitlement plantations built by the Democratic Party for a thousand years of statist rule. And they will further discover in the dust and fallen shapes of the era’s progressive leadership a distinct layer of radioactive contempt for the American people -- all that remained of President Barack Obama's legacy of political failures.

History is not an active force directing humanity towards a state of perfection, but often an account of the vanity of those who believe that it is. And in writing the story of our unhappy times, the scribes will not be kind to Barack Obama. It cannot profit to wait upon the opinions of generations yet unborn, but it suffices for the moment to know that America's long liberal winter of darkness and decline -- the debilitating effects of social justice programming, its mythology, its political correctness, its necessary coercion, dishonesty, and error -- at last has ended.

Despite President Obama's public rhetoric, we never knew the man, for he used language to create a fog of misinformation around his life, his character and his intentions. He believed in class warfare -- the first weapon of Marxist ideology -- yet he spoke only of "hope and change," and there we listened. He brought a passion for political reforms that seemed irresistible, and many wanted to hear him; therefore, we gave him our trust, for we are a nation of good will. In this we were honest; he was not. We wanted to give this man a chance to succeed, to do the things he said he would do -- this man who spoke so well with words written by others. We remember his perverse ingratitude, as well as his arrogance, towards the working middle class, the very people who offered him their hopes for a better life. We wanted to believe in him; he did not wish to believe in us.

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Southeastern Virginia, Eastern Shore break chilly records

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — After a snowy weekend, southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore broke some chilly records overnight.

The National Weather Service in Wakefield, Virginia, says temperatures in many inland locations dropped to zero or below on Monday morning, but the lowest reading in the area was -8 degrees in Petersburg, Virginia.

Salisbury, Maryland, and Richmond, Virginia, both broke records for low temperatures for the date with 0 degrees on Monday. Salisbury’s previous record low of 1 degree was set in 1916. Richmond broke the record low set in 1940 for the day of 1 degree.

Source 

The Push For Paid Sick Leave In Maryland

Annapolis, Md. (WJZ) — Maryland lawmakers are hoping to ease the burden of low-income workers by requiring employers to offer some form of paid sick days. Political reporter Pat Warren looks at the prospects of passing a law this year.

This is one of those issues that comes back again and again, and supporters hope this year the General Assembly looks past the politics, to the people.

For tens of thousands of Marylanders, getting sick is not only a health issue, it’s an economic one. Families are forced to choose between their wallets and their well-being.

“This is a bill about family values. This is a bill that says people should be able to take of themselves and their children when illness strikes,” says Melissa Broom, with Job Opportunities Task Force.

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The Hate Group That Tracks Down 'Hate Groups'

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was founded in 1971 by two Alabama attorneys, Morris Dees and Joseph Levin Jr. The latter served as the Center's legal director from 1971-76, but it was Dees, who views the U.S. as an irredeemably racist nation, who would emerge as the long-term “face” of the organization.

Identifying itself as a “nonprofit civil rights organization” committed to “fighting hate and bigotry” while “seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society,” SPLC describes the United States as a country “seething with racial violence” and “intolerance against those who are different.” “Hate in America is a dreadful, daily constant,” says the Center, and violent crimes against members of minority groups like blacks, Latinos, homosexuals, and Arabs/Muslims “are not ‘isolated incidents,’” but rather, commonplace. To combat this ugly state of affairs, SPLC dedicates itself to “tracking and exposing the activities of “hate groups and other domestic extremists” throughout the United States. Specifically, the Center's “Hate & Extremism” initiative publishes its findings in SPLC’s Hatewatch Blog and in its quarterly journal, the Intelligence Report.

SPLC first gained widespread national recognition in 1987, when it won a $7 million verdict in a high-profile civil lawsuit against the United Klans of America (UKA). By the time that lawsuit was filed, UKA was already a destitute, impotent, disintegrating entity that virtually all white Americans emphatically rejected; the SPLC lawsuit merely drove the final nail into the UKA coffin. SPLC boasts that it has likewise won “crushing jury verdicts” that effectively shut down groups like the White Aryan Resistance, the White Patriot Party militia, and the Aryan Nations.

This has been SPLC's modus operandi since its inception: to initiate lawsuits against prominent hate groups for crimes that their individual members commit. In these suits, declares Morris Dees proudly: “We absolutely take no prisoners.

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A Muslim Murder Spree in Canada’s Capital

Canada’s capital is a small sleepy city of less than a million. Its average annual murder rate is only 10. That’s a weekend in Chicago. But last year something strange happened to Ottawa’s murder rate.

It shot up to 24 homicides.

The last two murders were of Somali Muslim sisters Asma and Nasiba. Their murderer was their brother, Musab A-Noor. Despite the obvious history of Muslim honor killings of women, often carried out by brothers against their sisters, Musab was found “unfit” to stand trial. A director at the Somali Centre for Family Services insisted that Somali settlers in the city need more mental health funding.

Something certainly seems to be needed.

There were an estimated 66,000 Muslim settlers in the Ottawa - Gatineau metropolitan area. Despite forming some 5 percent of the population, they are startlingly overrepresented in Ottawa’s murders.

2016 in Ottawa ended with a Muslim murder in December and it began with a Muslim murder in January. Mohamed Najdi was killed by five other Muslim men. Mohamed had probably been shot in connection with the 2015 shooting of yet another Muslim man by an accused killer named Mohammad.

And we mustn’t confuse Mohamed with Mohammad.

The other Mohammad, a Kuwaiti immigrant, had been a suspect in multiple shootings the previous year and had spent two years in prison for sexual assault.

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Trial over fix for segregation at Maryland colleges begins

BALTIMORE (AP) — A trial to determine the best way to cure inequality among Maryland’s colleges and universities is underway in federal court in Baltimore.

The decade-old case being heard Monday involves a coalition representing the state’s four historically black colleges that says the state has underfunded the institutions while developing programs at traditionally white schools that directly compete with and drain prospective students away from the African-American schools.

The trial will determine a remedy.

The judge in 2013 recommended mediation after finding the state had maintained “a dual and segregated education system,” and that its practices were in violation of the Constitution. The judge agreed with the coalition that the state allowed traditionally white schools to replicate those of historically black institutions, thus undermining the African-American schools’ success.

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The case for a border adjustable tax system

If America’s competitors were intentionally trying to design a tax system to destroy the American economy, they probably couldn’t come up with a dumber tax system than the way the United States currently taxes our own businesses.

To fully appreciate the stupidity of the American corporate tax, consider this simple example:

If you are an American company making cars in Michigan, you have to pay a 35 percent profits tax on the car made here and then if the car is sold across the border to Mexico, the Mexicans slap a 16 percent value added tax on the car, so it is taxed on both sides of the border. Almost all countries tax goods produced in the United States this way.

Now let us say that the auto factory is moved from Michigan to Mexico City. Now the car produced in the factory in Mexico is not taxed by the Mexicans if the auto is sold in the United States.

Even more amazing: the U.S. imposes no tax on the imported car. To summarize, the car is taxed twice if it is built in America and then sold abroad and never taxed if it is built abroad and sold here in the U.S. And we wonder why companies are moving out in droves for China, India, Ireland, Mexico and the like.

Donald Trump is right. What we have in America is not free trade. It is stupid trade with the deck stacked against American producers and workers.

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UNLESS YOU JUST DEPEND ON OTHER AMERICANS TO FOOT THE BILL FOR YOU

From the Wall Street Journal: 

Just Had a Baby? Prepare to Spend $233,610 Raising It

The cost of child-rearing rose 3% in 2015, the government says

At this point, with tens of millions of people on government assistance, now you have a good idea what it cost US per person each year, (you and me) for others to raise children.

Hopefully President Trump will finally hold people more accountable in the future.  

Americans Couldn't Wait To Ditch These 10 States In 2016

With 2016 now a distant memory for most of us, we take a look back with United Van Lines at the migratory patterns of Americans over the course of the year. After a quick review of the data, a few interesting themes emerge:

1. People continue to flee the indebted, pension ponzi burdened liberal states of New England and the Midwest with New Jersey, Illinois, New York and Connecticut all ranking at the very top of the most ditched states of 2016.

2. Obama's obliteration of the coal industry has pushed people out of Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio, none of which appeared on the list of most-ditched states back in 2008 and 2009 before Obama took office.

3. Finally, the natural migratory pattern of New England's liberal elitists seems to be toward cheaper and lower taxed states in the Southeast and Western portions of the country...go figure.

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Israeli Soldiers Hesitated to Shoot, Feared Arrest

The Jerusalem Post reports: The military trainer that shot and killed the terrorist who rammed his truck into a group of people killing four in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood on Sunday said that IDF soldiers on the scene were hesitant to shoot due in part to the conviction of IDF soldier Elor Azaria on manslaughter charges.

The military trainer, identifying himself as Eitan, told Army Radio that “after rolling back on the grass, I saw the truck go in reverse, and then I realized that it wasn’t an accident.”

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Czech Government Fears Muslim "Super-Holocaust", Urges Citizens To Shoot Them Yourselves

On the heels of Czech President Milos Zeman's warnings of a possible "super-Holocaust" carried out by Muslim terrorists, urging citizens to arm themselves, WaPo reports the country's interior ministry is pushing a constitutional change that would let citizens use guns against terrorists if police are delayed or unable to make their way to the scene of an attack.

Czech president Milos Zeman had previously proposed that economic migrants should be deported from Europe to “uninhabited Greek islands” or to “empty places” in North Africa. The spectacularly incredible president also proposed that the Greek debt should be progressively reduced in return for shouldering the cost of hosting hundreds of thousands economic migrants.

“We are in Greece, and Greece has plenty of uninhabited islands, and big foreign debt. So if you have ‘hotspots’ in Greek islands, this would be a sort of payment of foreign debt,” Zeman told Financial Times in an interview on the islands of Rhodes where he participated in the Rhodes Forum.

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Norfolk Police Sergeant Has Acid Thrown On Him By Dale Bright While Walking To Car

Norfolk, VA – A Norfolk Police Sergeant was attacked Monday by Dale Bright, who threw a caustic substance in his eyes, and on his face and neck.

According to ABC 13 NewsNow, the Norfolk Police Sergeant was approached this morning about 10:00 AM by Dale Bright, age 51, as he walked to his vehicle from a Dunkin Donuts restaurant. The incident occurred in the 800 block of North Military Highway. Bright, who is from Virginia Beach, approached the Norfolk Police Sergeant, who was not on a call for service, and threw some type of caustic substance in his face.

Bright fled on foot but the injured Norfolk Police Sergeant chased after him, called for back-up, and relayed information on Bright’s description and location. Bright was caught and taken into custody in the 5700 block of E. Virginia Beach Blvd. He is currently being held at the Norfolk City Jail without bond on a charge of Malicious Wounding by Means of Caustic Substance.

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Congress gives Kate’s Law another chance

Kate’s Law has been introduced in Congress, giving lawmakers another run at legislation to impose a mandatory minimum five-year prison term on foreigners who re-enter the U.S. after being deported.

The legislation is named for Kate Steinle, a 32-year-old who was fatally shot by a felon in San Francisco who had been deported but returned to the U.S., authorities said. The House passed the bill last year, but it died in a filibuster by Senate Democrats. The bill was introduced last week in the House by Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican, and in the Senate by Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican.

“Parents should never experience the heartbreak of burying their child, but the Obama administration’s commitment to lawless immigration policy has made that tragedy the new normal,” Mr. King said.

“In his push for amnesty for criminals, the president ignored the price paid by victims — the price paid by Kate Steinle as she died in her father’s arms on San Francisco’s waterfront,” he said. “Kate’s beautiful life was taken from her on July 1, 2015, when she was shot in the back by an illegal alien who had previously been deported five times and was seeking refuge in a so-called sanctuary city.”

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President Trump’s Immigration Challenge

On January 20, 2017 President Trump can and likely will end all of Obama’s illegal immigration executive orders, but he needs to do more.

For decades the effective enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws was hobbled by lack of resources in general and a particularly devastating failure to enforce the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.

For decades the Border Patrol was perceived as the primary enforcement arm of America’s immigration laws and for the Border Patrol this worked out fine. They got the lion’s share of publicity and, far more importantly, the funding while INS special agents and the interior enforcement mission were all but ignored

When the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) was created in the wake of the terror attacks of 9/11, the former INS was dismantled and broken into several components of the DHS and mixed in with other agencies, principally the U.S. Customs Service.

Bad as it was for INS agents to operate in the shadow of the Border Patrol, the creation of the DHS was disastrous and caused many of the INS agents nostalgic for “the good old days.”

On May 5, 2005 the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims conducted a hearing on the topic, “New 'Dual Mission' Of The Immigration Enforcement Agencies.”

I was one of four witnesses who testified at that hearing. In point of fact, I testified at several hearings that sought to understand the challenges that the creation of the DHS created for the effective enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws.

In my testimony I clearly articulated my concerns about the myriad issues created when the DHS was established and the former INS was dismantled.

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Ron Paul Sums Up Nobel-Peace-Prize-Winning President Obama In One Short Sentence

Following our discussion of the unprecedented bombing-fest that has been undertaken during President Obama's reign...

Seven years after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," despite having been in office for less than one year and having pretty much no actual, tangible foreign diplomacy accomplishments at the time, President Obama will depart the White House having dropped 26,171 bombs on foreign countries around the world in 2016, 3,027 more than 2015.

According to an analysis of Defense Department data from the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan think tank, the majority of Obama's 2016 bombs were dropped on Syria and Iraq. Meanwhile, Afghanistan, a country President Obama vowed U.S. troops would evacuate completely by the end of his Presidency, was also bombed over 1,300 times, a 40% increase over 2015. Per McClatchy DC:

The U.S. dropped 79 percent of the anti-Islamic State group coalition bombs in Syria and Iraq, totaling 24,287. That figure, along with others analyzed by CFR, is likely lower than the actual number dropped because one airstrike can involved multiple bombs.

Obama did authorize a troop surge in Afghanistan — a conflict he pledged to end during his campaign — where the U.S. dropped 1,337 bombs in 2016. There are currently 8,400 U.S. troops left in the country, more than Obama initially wanted to keep there at the end of his term. The U.S. only dropped 947 bombs in Afghanistan in 2015.

The U.S. also dropped more bombs in Libya in 2016 than it did in 2015. Nearly 500 bombs were dropped in the North African country that has essentially been ungoverned since the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. He was captured and killed during the Libyan Civil War, kicked off by the Arab Spring protests that also began the Syrian conflict.

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Saddam Hussein's death warrant signed 'on day one' after 9/11, former CIA analyst reveals

'We went to Iraq to do all of these things, to find the weapons of mass destruction, to help build a new Iraq, to establish rule of law, give the Iraqi people democracy, and one by one, all of those things just crumbled'

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EU Collapse 'No Longer Unthinkable,' German Official Says

Globalist world government falling apart

Germany’s insistence on austerity in the euro zone has left Europe more divided than ever and a break-up of the European Union is no longer inconceivable, German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told Der Spiegel magazine.

Gabriel, whose Social Democrats (SPD) are junior partner to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives in her ruling grand coalition, said strenuous efforts by countries like France and Italy to reduce their fiscal deficits came with political risks.

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Fake News: CBS Report Implies Trump Torture Victim was Black, Assailants White

‘This is the sort of lying that takes skill and practice’

A news report from CBS Radio implied the attackers who kidnapped and beat a disabled man last week were white Trump supporters.

The report aired Thursday egregiously skewed and omitted details regarding the high-profile assault, making it seem as though the assailants were white and the victim a helpless black man.

Listen to the clip for yourself below:

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Graham Calls Republicans Celebrating Russian Interference a 'Political Hack' - 'You're Not a Patriot'

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said any Republican celebrating Russia’s hacking into the 2016 presidential election were “making a huge mistake” and described them as a “political hack.”

Graham said, “To my Republican friends who are gleeful, you’re making a huge mistake. When when Wikileaks released information during the Bush years about the Iraq War that was embarrassing to the administration, that put our troops at risk most Democrats condemned it, some celebrated it. Most Republicans are condemning what Russia did and to those who are gleeful it you’re a political hack. You’re not a Republican and you’re not a patriot.”

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Ex-CIA: Clinton Doesn't Need Putin's Help to Discredit Herself

NSA would have only evidence of "Russian hacking," yet backed off from claim

The main goal of the whole “Russian hacking” US election narrative is a propaganda stunt aimed discrediting Trump by claiming that Russia’s Vladimir Putin personally intervened to discredit Hillary Clinton, retired CIA analyst has told RT.

“It’s designed to smear Trump. Because even the language that developed the notion that Vladimir Putin took it upon himself and instructed the intelligence organs in Russia to go out and discredit Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton didn’t need any help being discredited, she was quite effective at it herself,” Larry Johnson said.

“It was not Vladimir Putin that put the email server in her bathroom,” Johnson added.

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The Same Officials Who Pushed the Iraq War Are Now Stirring Up Anti-Russia Hysteria

The main U.S. intelligence official pushing claims that Russia hacked the Democratic party is James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence.

But Clapper was responsible for a lot of the bogus intelligence which led to the Iraq war. Newsweek reported in 2010:

President Obama’s nomination of Pentagon intelligence chief James Clapper as intelligence czar could reignite the Bush-era debate over how and why agencies overstated Saddam Hussein’s weapons-of-mass-destruction arsenal before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Clapper played an important role in that estimate; from 2001 to 2006 he headed the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon unit responsible for interpreting spy-satellite photos and other technically gathered intelligence like air particles and soil samples. And now the conservative Washington Times is reviving the argument, reporting that in Clapper’s judgment the Iraqi dictator evaded the post-invasion WMD search by hiding at least part of the arsenal across the border in shortly before the invasion.

Clapper himself told Congress yesterday that his “fingerprints” were all over the Iraq intelligence estimate.

The architect of the NSA’s global surveillance system (Bill Binney) and a 27-year CIA veteran who chaired National Intelligence Estimates and personally delivered intelligence briefings to both Democratic and Republican presidents and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Ray McGovern)wrote yesterday:

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Who gave this guy his gun back … twice?

You won't believe the 'warning shots' he fired before airport attack

WASHINGTON – The case of Esteban Santiago, the 26-year-old shooter in the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport massacre, gets stranger by the minute.

He flew from Alaska without checking any bags, other than the hard gun case he collected in baggage claim and opened to kill five people while wounding six others.

He was already being prosecuted for attacking his girlfriend and attempting to strangle her. He even broke the terms of his release on that charge by entering her home again. But he was allowed to keep his gun.

The FBI interviewed him in November after his employer in Alaska expressed concerns about things he was saying. He reportedly told the FBI he was being forced by the CIA to fight for ISIS. While being evaluated, the FBI took his gun. But they released him and gave it back after a psychiatric investigation that called for no followup and no medication.

He served in Iraq for the Army Reserves and the Alaska National Guard but was discharged for “unsatisfactory performance.”

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L.L. Bean Chairman Responds To Attempted Anti-Trump Boycott

L.L. Bean Executive Chairman Shawn Gorman was not pleased to see that his company had been included on the "Grab Your Wallet" boycott list because of board member Linda Bean's public support of Donald Trump. In a statement posted on the company's Facebook page, Gorman explained that Linda Bean is just one of more 50 members of the extended Bean family involved in running the company, and that the company is home to many people of diverse political viewpoints and does not want to endorse any candidate. Gorman called the boycott "misguided" and asked for Grab Your Wallet to please remove the company from the list.

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Note: These Liberals are in for a very long 8 years. Stupidity personified.

Union Servitude Ends In Kentucky: State Kills Prevailing Wages, Passes Right-To-Work

In a major setback for organized labor, Kentucky passed right-to-work legislation and repealed the state’s prevailing wage law.

Organized labor suffered its first major legislative setback due to the 2016 elections on Saturday, when Kentucky Republicans gave final approval to right-to-work legislation and repealed the state’s prevailing wage law. Both bills are expected to be signed into law by the governor, and will take effect immediately.

Labor leaders were equally troubled by the legislature’s move to gut the state’s prevailing wage law. Such laws require that employers pay certain minimum wages on work funded by public money. Backers of the laws say they help make sure companies accepting taxpayer dollars don’t drive down wages and working conditions. Opponents argue they inflate the cost of public works projects.

The repeal means prevailing wages will no longer apply to construction workers building schools and government buildings.

Charlie Essex, the financial secretary for Local 369 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Louisville, called the measure “an attack on union people.” He estimated that the prevailing wage law applied to more than 30 percent of union construction work in Kentucky.

Backed by business lobbies, Republican lawmakers around the country have been aggressive in pushing right-to-work bills and prevailing wage repeals in recent years. When Democrats lose control of a statehouse chamber or the governor’s mansion, they are often powerless to stop them.

Long confined to the South and West, right-to-work proponents have recently made inroads elsewhere in the country, including even the industrial Midwest. Since 2012, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and West Virginia have all gone right-to-work. Kentucky will be the 27th such state, making it more the norm than the exception around the country.

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'Repeal and Replace' Obamacare -- With the Free Market

One of President-elect Donald Trump's major campaign promises is to "repeal and replace" Obamacare.

Vice President Joe Biden recently dared him to do so. Biden knows that 20 million Americans have health insurance that didn't before Obamacare, and they represent 20 million stories on CNN, MSNBC and The New York Times — in the entire "health care is a right" crowd — when and if Trump follows through.

Sure, despite President Barack Obama's promises to the contrary, some people lost their health care coverage and some people lost their doctors. And no, the average family did not save $2,500 per year as Obama insisted would be the case. And yes, health insurance premiums, copays and deductibles are going up even though Obama promised that his plan would "bend the cost curve" down.

All that matters to the anti-Trump media is that there is now an entire class of people to exert pressure against the repeal of Obamacare. Many Republicans say they want to keep "the good parts of Obamacare," specifically the prohibition against denying insurance based on a pre-existing condition and forcing insurance carriers to keep a "child" on his or her parents' policy until the child is 26. Republicans promised to not only repeal but to "replace" Obamacare. How can they do this — and replace it with what?

Republicans, despite their unanimous opposition against Obamacare, bought into at least two premises that its proponents argued. The first is that health care is a right — or, if not a right, at least something whose costs the federal government should reduce. The second is that, having made the decision to intervene in health care, the federal government possesses the knowledge, wisdom and judgment to reduce its costs to make it "affordable." The feds, promised Obamacare advocates, can even make health care affordable without reducing quality.

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The Surveillance State Did Not Disappear With The Trump Victory: "It Is Still Lurking And Completely Intact"

One of the things Donald Trump has really done correctly is to assess his future arena in the areas of intelligence-gathering and operational security. Trump wants to return to a “courier” method of transmitting sensitive information and classified documents for the purpose of reducing the amount of material that can be hacked or stolen. There is a subtlety about this for a caveat, in case the compliment has bloomed flowers in your thoughts: the NSA $50 billion facility for collection and storage of data in Utah won’t be shutting down anytime soon.

As Snowden’s exposés clearly pointed out, the government has clearly followed Petraeus’ glowing “internet of things” yellow brick road to form an integrated, interconnected surveillance state. All CCTV (closed circuit television) systems, all merchants with cameras, all law enforcement cameras…all of the camera surveillance systems everywhere are either tied into data collection immediately or can be accessed for use at a later time.

The latest “Jason Bourne” movie clearly illustrates how the government can utilize devices such as cellular telephones (especially the ones with cameras) to track movements, record conversations, and be a “piggyback” to relay information to a nearby computer or a camera. This isn’t the future: this is now.

There is an older piece written by Michael Snyder in June of 2013 entitled 27 Edward Snowden Quotes About U.S. Government Spying That Should Send a Chill Up Your Spine. The information in this article is directly from Edward Snowden that revealed exactly what the government has been doing regarding their total surveillance program. The surveillance did not occur overnight, and in the manner of the “frog in the cold-water kettle” by stretching out the time for putting it all into place, the stultified public’s focus was either diverted or bypassed entirely.

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Virginia Refuses to Track Refugee TB, State's High Rate of Foreign-Born Cases Climbs

The state of Virginia refuses to track the number of refugees it resettles who are diagnosed with active tuberculosis (TB).

This refusal continues even as the number of cases diagnosed in the state has increased for two consecutive years, from 180 in 2013 — the year former Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe, a staunch Clinton ally, was elected governor — to 198 in 2014, the year he took office, to 212 in 2015, the last year for which data is available.

The percentage of foreign-born cases of TB in Virginia has increased from 74 percent in 2013 (147 out of 180) to 79 percent in 2015 (168 out of 212), well above the national average of 66 percent in 2015 (6,350 out of 9,536).

In the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Reported Tuberculosis in the United States, 2015, those 6,350 foreign-born cases of TB were broken down into the following categories of immigration status upon arrival:

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IRS prioritized Obamacare over taxpayer customer service

The IRS made the 2015 tax season more painful for taxpayers than it should have been, the agency’s inspector general said in a report Thursday that accused the agency of cutting money for customer service and ignoring phone calls while moving the money over to keep Obamacare and other administration priorities on track.

IRS employees ignored more than 30 million phone calls from desperate taxpayers seeking help in the run-up to the 2015 filing deadline — and those who did get through often waited a half-hour before getting help.

The IRS apologized publicly for the poor service and blamed Congress, saying lawmakers needed to pony up more money if they wanted better results.

But Inspector General J. Russell George said the IRS cut its own funding by eliminating nearly $150 million from customer service and slashing more than 2,000 staff positions.

The findings confirm what congressional Republicans charged as they reviewed the tax agency’s books.

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Tancredo: Mandatory E-Verify for Employment Should be Trump’s Priority

Yes, the wall on our southwest border can and should be built. But it is less important than enacting the mandatory E-Verify system for employment.

Let’s face it. We all know it is the prospect of a better life through employment that attracts the vast majority of border jumpers. Our system for blocking unlawful employment of foreign-born workers who lack a lawful work permit has always been a joke, and under Obama, enforcement has been an even lower priority than it was under Bush.

Congress can turn off the jobs magnet by enacting the mandatory E-Verify program, an internet-based system allowing instant verification of the legal status of job applicants. It has an error rate of less than 1 percent and costs employers next to nothing.

Foreign born workers have no constitutional right to employment. Like every European country, Mexico and all of the advanced nations of the world, the United States has a system of “work authorization permits” for legal employment by immigrants and all foreign nationals. The problem is, our laws against unlawful employment are not enforced– in fact, they are unenforceable without major changes and improvements.

If we turn off the jobs magnet, illegal entry across our borders can change from a flood to a trickle. Then the Border Patrol could concentrate on stopping terrorists and drug traffickers..

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Naps And Your Brain: Take An Afternoon Snooze

When your morning coffee’s kick is wearing off and that afternoon slump starts to hit you, go and take a nap to keep your mind running properly.

The idea of a siesta is nothing new, particularly in hotter countries like Spain, and researchers have long studied the benefits of these post-lunch catnaps. A new study pinpoints the optimal amount of time seniors should nap in the afternoon for the benefit of their mental function: about one hour.

Findings in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society were based on surveys of almost 3,000 older Chinese people about their napping habits and data of their cognitive function. Those who napped for a moderate amount of time after lunch — most of them for close to 60 minutes — showed “better overall cognition” as compared to both people who didn’t nap and people who napped for periods that were longer than 90 minutes or shorter than 30 minutes. Based on the results, those moderately long naps “may be an important part of optimizing cognition in elderly adults,” the study suggested, and thus decreasing “the risk of functional dependence and poor quality of life.”

The Health in Aging Foundation, a nonprofit group founded by the American Geriatrics Society, said in a statement that the difference in mental function between the moderate nappers and all the rest was equivalent to what “a five-year increase in age would be expected to cause” — the latter group’s mental decline was between four and six times greater.

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Obama: I didn't underestimate Putin

Even after the U.S. intelligence community concluded Russia hacked Democrats during the presidential campaign, President Obama says he did not underestimate Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In an interview that aired Sunday on ABC News' "This Week," host George Stephanopoulos reminded Obama that he mocked Republican nominee Mitt Romney four years ago for seeing Russia as a "geopolitical" threat.

"I don't think I underestimated him," Obama said of Putin. "I think that I underestimated the degree to which, in this new information age, it is possible for misinformation for cyberhacking and so forth to have an impact on our open societies, our open systems, to insinuate themselves into our democratic practices in ways that I think are accelerating."

During a debate in 2012, Obama accused Romney of calling Russia the U.S.'s top "geopolitical threat" over al Qaeda. Romney corrected Obama, saying he called the country a "geopolitical foe."

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Senators Question Comcast, Charter About “Broadcast TV” & “Regional Sports” Fees

The 115th Congress only just came into town and got properly sworn in and down to business on Tuesday, but returning members aren’t wasting any time picking their favorite projects back up. And so, only a few days into the new year, a pair of senators are turning on Charter and Comcast to ask what, exactly, those two think they’re doing with their pricing schemes. 

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Ransomware Spreading Onto Smart TVs, Is A Pain To Fix

Streaming TV has been a boon for consumers. Programming is everywhere, right at our fingertips, as soon as we get our screens online. But that connectivity comes with a big risk: wherever there’s an internet connection, there’s a possibility for bad guys to show up. And now they are showing up in the real world, holding TV sets hostage with ransomware and demanding cash to let you access your own stuff. 

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DC Mayor Says Arresting Pot Smokers At Inauguration Won’t Be A Priority

If you’re hoping to grab one of 4,200 free joints that will be passed out by a pro-marijuana legalization group on Inauguration Day, The Man probably won’t be focused on hassling you for smoking up, Washington D.C.’s mayor says. 

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Jihadists Train, Plan U.S. Attack from Mexican Border State

A Jihadi-cartel alliance in the Mexican state of Nuevo León is collaborating to carry out attacks in American cities and ports of entry along the southern border, according to intelligence obtained by Judicial Watch from confidential U.S. and Mexican law enforcement sources. As part of the plan, militant Islamists have arrived recently at the Monterrey International Airport situated in Apodaca, Nuevo León, about 130 miles south of the Texas border.

An internal Mexican law enforcement report obtained by Judicial Watch confirms that Islamic terrorists have “people along the border, principally in Tijuana, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.” Cartel informants tell law enforcement contacts that “they are only waiting for the order and the times to carry out a simultaneous attack in the different ports of entry or cities of the United States of America.” Drug cartels have a working “agreement” with Islamic terrorists, according to a high-ranking Mexican police administrator, who said that men from the Middle East arrive regularly into the country to “train” jihadists.

Judicial Watch sources include veteran law enforcement officials in the U.S. and Mexico as well as longtime undercover informants who have worked for intelligence agencies in both countries, mainly in the crime-infested southern border region. They can’t be identified out of fear for their safety. One seasoned Mexican law enforcement official told Judicial Watch that a key cartel informant verified picking up various Middle Eastern individuals from “evil groups” at the Monterrey Airport in the last few days alone. The informant is extremely credible and has also worked for several U.S. government agencies, Judicial Watch has verified through various federal, state and local sources.

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